For the – probably one of you – who has been waiting for the rest of the recipes for this dinner, here at last they are. SPINACH WITH PINE NUTS AND RAISINS

For 4

25 grams pine nuts

A good bunch of fresh tender spinach

Olive oil 25 grams small golden raisins

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Firstly toast the pine nuts until a golden brown in a thick based pan over a low heat. Shake the pan from time to time to turn the nuts.

Wash and drain the spinach.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a shallow pan. Add the spinach, cover and let wilt for a couple of minutes over a low heat.

Add the pine nuts and raisins and stir to mix.

Season then cover the pan again and leave to cook for about five minutes.

Serve on hot plates.

PRAWN WITH GARLIC, LEMON AND PARSLEY

For 4

20 medium sized peeled prawns

1 large clove garlic

Olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

Chopped flat leaved parsley

Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a frying pan.

Add the chopped garlic and fry until light brown.

Add the prawns and cook quickly on a high heat until opaque and slightly browned.

Squeeze in the lemon juice and stir to collect any brownings at the bottom of the pan.

Sprinkle in the parsley and serve immediately on a hot dish.

CARAMELISED FIG CUSTARDS

FOR 4

The only remotely complicated thing about this recipe is remembering to cook the custards early enough that they can cool completely. You can of course cook them the day before they are needed.

I will point out also that it is not an error that the custard does not have sugar added to it. There is enough sweetness in the caramelised fig to balance the less sweet custard.

4 tablespoons caramelised fig jam

Butter for greasing your pots

2 eggs

200 ml full fat milk

Few drops vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 140C

To cook this you will need individual ovenproof pots for the custard. Most crockery is oven proof provided you don’t heat or cool it too rapidly. I used some glass coffee cups to cook my custards.

Grease the pots with butter and then put a tablespoon of the fig jam in the bottom of each.

Break the eggs into a jug and whisk lightly to mix.

Add the milk and vanilla essence and whisk a bit more to mix this.

Pouring through a sieve to remove any solid bits in the egg, pour the custard into the pots.

Put the pots into a deep baking dish and add boiling water to the dish to come about 2cm up the pots. This prevents the custards getting too hot and burning on their bases.

Put in the oven and leave to cook for about an hour until the custards are just set.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.

To serve slide a thin knife around the edge of the custard, put a small plate on top of the pot and invert the whole lot. You may have to give the custard and encouraging shake. If any of the jam stays in the pot, simply spoon neatly on top of the custard.

MINI CARDAMOM SHORTBREADS

100 grams plain flour

40 grams fine semolina

Quarter teaspoon ground cardamoms

30 grams sugar

100 grams butter

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix.

Cut the butter into small pieces into the flour mix and rub in.

Bring the mix together in a firm dough.

On a floured surface roll the dough out to just under a centimetre thick.

If you have a very small round cutter – ideally about 3cm diameter – then cut into small biscuits. Otherwise cut into small squares or lozenges.

This didn’t seem like a complicated meal for mid-week when I cooked it the other week, but now that I am writing about it, there is quite a lot of work. I must have been in one of those Zen cooking moods.

Much of it is done in advance, which makes it feel less work. The oxtail stew is cooked the evening before and left to very slowly cool in the oven overnight, which lets it cook long and slow and so develop a rich flavour. I cooked enough stew so that there was enough not only for this meal, but also for making Fresh Pasta with Beef Ragout for my sisters the following weekend.

I have jars of Caramelised Fig Jam, made from fruit from the farm last summer. So for the dessert, I only needed to mix an egg custard, put that in pots on top of the Fig Jam and then put the pots in the oven to cook and set.

But then I got into biscuit making mood. The custards are perfectly fine without the biscuits. But I had that yearning in my minds stomach for buttery, crunchy, sweetness with the gorgeous fragrance of cardamoms…..

I am giving you the stew recipe today. You will get the starters and dessert tomorrow.

In August the fig trees are so replete with fruit that the birds and I between us cannot eat them all. Caramelised Fig Jam has been made, kilos of fruit have been dried, some figs have been transformed into chutney, and as many as one can eat have been eaten – with Ham, with salty cheese, in salads and just on their own. I have successfully used them to make a Fig Tart – you will find the recipe for that in a previous post – but need a new dessert recipe.

This experiment was a success and as the August figs are so sweet, doesn’t need any added sugar. The key to getting it right is not to be afraid to keep cooking. If you stop cooking too early the figs will not have a caramel flavour, so if you let them cool a bit and taste them and they don’t seem done enough, don’t worry, just put them back on the heat and cook some more until they have a faint caramel aroma and a stickiness where they are in contact with the heat at the bottom of the pan.

I have now made this dessert twice, and the second time served the figs still warm with fresh cream and the warm toasted hazel nuts, which was very good too.

Per person

5 ripe figs

10 grams of butter

Wash the figs and dry them in a tea towel.

Cut off the stems and cut the figs into quarters.

Warm the butter in a non-stick frying pan and add the figs.

Cook stirring on a medium heat. The fruit will start to give out some of its juices, continue cooking until these have evaporated.

Keep stirring and cooking until the fruit mixture is dryer and is frying in the butter.

The sugar in the fruit will now start to get hotter and be heading towards caramelising. Keep cooking until you can detect the caramel aroma. The fig mixture will get dryer and tend to stick to the bottom of the pan a bit, but keep going until they are nice and toffee flavoured.

Do not be tempted to taste the figs at this point, they are very hot.

Leave to cool until warm.

Put into ramekin dishes and smooth the tops. Leave to cool to room temperature.

In the frying pan toast to golden some broken and crushed hazel nuts. Leave to cool to room temperature.

When ready to serve loosen the fig mixture from the sides of the dishes with a knife, put a plate on top and upturn the whole to end up with the fig compote on the plate. The butter should stop the fig mix from sticking to the ramekin.